


Monster Under (In) The Bed

by MadQueen



Series: The Magnus Archives & Reader [1]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Canonical Character Death, Elias Bouchard Being Elias Bouchard, Established Relationship, F/M, Human/Monster Romance, M/M, Monsters, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27522631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadQueen/pseuds/MadQueen
Summary: Michael was dead. You couldn't deny that.... But why does that being you keep seeing remind you so much of him? Even if it looked a bit... off.--Michael/Reader, reader is left gender neutral, and so it can be read however you want! It's kind of cute but in that unsettling tma way.As always, Elias is his uncaring and unsupportive self in this. Gotta love him.Part 1 of my Disortion/Reader story.
Relationships: Michael Shelley/Reader, Michael | The Distortion (The Magnus Archives)/Reader
Series: The Magnus Archives & Reader [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2017012
Comments: 3
Kudos: 63





	Monster Under (In) The Bed

**Author's Note:**

> Michael Shelley I have feelings for you. Helen, you're next. 
> 
> Also, this is super old so it's not relevant to the plot literally whatsoever anymore but I just love the distortion alright

You loved Michael. You did. You loved Michael more than any other person in the entire world, that was a fact that you weren't afraid to admit. Being together with him for as long as you were, it was hard not to catch feelings. 

You knew… a little bit about where Michael worked. It wasn't exactly a secret to you. The Magnus Institute. Dedicated to finding & documenting supernatural occurrences since as long as you can remember… Maybe as long as anyone could remember.

Michael's job wasn't dangerous, though. At least you didn't think it was. How could it? Supernatural beings  _ didn't exist _ .

The day that Michael left for the expedition to Russia with little details on what he was actually doing, you started to have your doubts that it was as safe as Michael had been making it seem. He'd gone on trips to other places, but something about this one seems… odd. 

Soon, those feelings become something more of a reality. The days on the calendar keep adding up and adding up… and he doesn't come back. 

**_Michael wouldn't be coming back to you_ ** .

The only thing that told you that he was dead- the only thing that confirmed your suspicions was the fact that you received a letter from The Magnus Institute. It was curt, and to the point. No details other than to confirm that he was gone. It was signed with the simple phrase 'Condolences.' 

You didn't have it in you to reread it, you knew what it was saying, and your eyes were blurred from the tears staining your vision. 

_ Michael was dead _ .

You were never one to accept things at face value, and with the person who you cared about the most dead, you showed up to The Magnus Institute.

You'd visited when Michael was still working there, and so the assistant that was sitting at the front desk turned white as a sheet whenever he saw you. He knew you. You'd seen him here before. 

He shakily calls for Elias whenever you, red in the face and on the verge of tears again, start asking for answers. 

Elias. He's out of the door to his office, facing you before you can even realize what's happening. 

Elias ushers you into his office, urgent to prevent some sort of scene in his lobby, and the door closes behind you two.

He gets to the point. Elias' wording sounds identical to the letter, and no matter what you say, he doesn't add anything more. 

You're even more frustrated when you leave… even if yelling at Elias does feel nice for a little bit. 

…

The first time you know of…  _ Michael,  _ it's actually in your dreams. Or, you thought it was at the time. 

He's in your room, on opposite side of your bed, standing over it as if he had just came through the bedroom door, and he… is…  _ not _ Michael. 

He Is, but… it's like a funhouse version of Michael. Nothing makes any sense, it's like someone were making a balloon animal and then didn't care when the balloons kept popping. There were parts of him, namely his hands and his face, that were just so warped that you barely even recognize him.

You close your eyes, tight, as you try and forget what you had just seen. You don’t open your eyes again, so even if he’s still there, you don’t notice. You're wracked with tears again, and this time it doesn't stop until the sun starts to rise. It's hard to say if you even slept any that night.

The next time it happens, it's in a mirror. You're brushing your teeth the next morning, and when you see that same figure, the same Michael that  _ isn't _ Michael, you scream this time. You do the same thing where you close your eyes, tightly, and he's gone when you reopen them about a minute later. 

You’re thankful.

After that, it starts to become commonplace. He's there, when you're making a sandwich, behind the door of the fridge when you close it. You close your eyes tightly for a few seconds, and he's gone.

When you go to work. In the reflection of your work computer. In the passenger seat of your car. In the water when you draw a bath. You close your eyes, and he’s gone.

It’s only when you see him on the other side of your bed, laying where Michael had always slept that you realize something. There is a weight there, one that was actually real. It was making a dent in your bed, but you didn't worry about that through the haze of sleep still in you, you decided not to blink him away this time. 

No, this time, you decided to use these continued...  _ hallucinations _ as a sort of fucked therapy. If you were going to continually see him, you might as well get something out of it. 

“Hey.” You say, quietly, and he looks surprised when you do.

He looks almost like he’s taken aback by it, like he hadn’t expected you to notice him, let alone talk to him. When he speaks, it’s very… quiet. It’s also distorted, and it sounds like how you remember Michael sounded but… different. Something was not quite right about it. Like a voice from down a hallway. “ _ Hello _ .” 

You reach out then, and Michael freezes even more than he already has. He doesn’t look like he knows what to do, but you gingerly reach a hand out and run it down the side of his face, at the long length of the distorted features that used to be so delicate. 

His skin feels… different. Not right. It feels like what’s underneath it isn’t what you’re feeling, it lacks the same bounce back that skin should have. Perhaps like dough, when you push into it it holds its slowly rises to fill the shape you created but… it never fully fills it again, does it? There's still that place where you meddled with it. His skin reacted much like that. 

You dip into his hair beside his face, wondering if it bears the same fate that his face had. His hair feels… sharp in places, like it's steel wool, and in other places it feels as soft as silk. It's nothing like it used to feel, nothing quite the same texture that hair should have. 

That's worrying. 

You choose to ignore it, and instead decide to move closer, curling into him as he moved to accommodate you and somewhat mimicking the same positions that you and he made almost every night. He doesn't entirely manage to place himself in the right way, but part of that might be because he's simply not the right  _ shape _ anymore. 

When your head presses into his chest, and you close your eyes to fall asleep against him, you don't acknowledge the fact there is no heartbeat. 


End file.
